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The Roar

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How to anger fans and alienate major sponsors

8th February, 2018
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Matt Lodge's return to the NRL is rather controversial. (AAP Image/David Clark)
Expert
8th February, 2018
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“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

This proverb has been ascribed to a great many people and in general it is a good rule.

However, sometimes saying nothing is the very worst thing you can do. The silence from NRL HQ in regards to their decision to register Matt Lodge’s contract with the Brisbane Broncos is one of those occasions.

The moment they decided to register Lodge’s contract, Todd Greenberg and his team had to get on the front foot and say why. They had to communicate with the NRL public their justification for letting someone who pleaded guilty to assault back into the game.

The storm that is now gathering strength regarding Lodge’s return to the game could have been quelled before it had even started if the NRL had just realised that a little bit of communication can go a long way.

However, the NRL is not a public organisation by any stretch. Although they’ve gone under the tagline “It’s your game” in seasons past, it’s never been clear to me just who they were talking to.

Who they are answerable to and what their primary goals are is open to speculation. Getting any information out of Moore Park can be quite the challenge.

In this age of ever more influential social media, the NRL seemingly hadn’t considered that club sponsors could be targeted by the fans as a result of contentious player registrations.

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Todd Greenberg

(NRL.com)

That realisation will definitely have come home to roost extremely heavily in the last week.

If there is one thing for absolute certain in the game of rugby league it is that money talks.

Everything points to it: the broadcast schedule, third party agreements, the primacy of State of Origin. Everything.

So the heat placed on the NRMA – the major sponsor of the biggest team in the NRL – because of the Brisbane Broncos recruiting, and the NRL duly registering, a convicted violent offender is not what Todd Greenberg and his posse wanted at all.

If the NRMA gets enough backlash over the matter – and they are copping quite a bit right now – it is not beyond the realms of possibility that they will end their commercial arrangement with the Broncos.

Rugby league in Australia really doesn’t need to lose money right now.

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And which company would want their logo emblazoned on a man who pleaded guilty to a crime in New York after he threatened the lives of two women, assaulted a man who came to their aid and then invaded a home, trashing the place and terrorising a woman and child inside it?

The Broncos have at least 18 free-to-air games this season – more if they make the finals – where Lodge will effectively be an ambassador for the NRMA to a mass audience.

Previously, Lodge has also been suspended for writing the word ‘c***’ on his game-day strapping.

So what possessed the Broncos to sign him?

It does seem odd to me that the club with the single largest pool of junior talent to draw from and develop – out of all the world’s rugby league clubs – would need to recruit the likes of Lodge. If I were a shareholder in the Brisbane Broncos Ltd, I’d want to know why there wasn’t a mass of local talent constantly coming through the ranks that made such signings unnecessary.

However, Wayne Bennett must believe Lodge can be effective. Bennett’s job is to achieve team success for the Broncos. Since returning, he has lost a grand final and been knocked out in the semi and preliminary finals respectively.

Now 68 years old, you can bet Uncle Wayne wants one more premiership. He clearly thinks Lodge can help achieve that goal. His club backed his recruitment.

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(AAP Image/David Clark)

The Broncos are such a huge club in the Australian sporting landscape that they may have thought that it wouldn’t matter to their sponsors who they recruited. This incident may change their thinking.

They do have a responsibility to the shareholders and sponsors of the Brisbane Broncos Ltd to try and avoid scandal, bad press, and to maintain the impression of team integrity. By signing Lodge, they haven’t achieved those ends.

And then the NRL registered the contract.

As shown by such things as their justification of the salary cap (below), the NRL considers it has a clear role to protect the clubs from themselves.

“It (the salary cap) ensures clubs are not put into a position where they are forced to spend more money than they can afford, in terms of player payments, just to be competitive.”

Surely then the same logic would apply to them ensuring that the clubs didn’t sign someone who could damage their reputation or lose sponsors. Or, if they did, that the NRL would have a proactive strategy to justify the registration.

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Right now the Broncos brand is being damaged, and through association, so is the NRMA’s.

And here’s the thing. Matt Lodge may have improved out of sight as a human. He may be remorseful and have set about making wrong his rights. He may be worth a chance at redemption. The NRL may have considered all of these things in a thorough and diligent process.

However, these are all the sort of things that the Broncos and the NRL could have told us to try and avoid having the NRMA taken to task on social media.

Further, the registration of Lodge’s contract adds more confusion around who the NRL banish and who they allow to play again.

Todd Carney bleeding

(AAP Image/Action Photographics, Colin Whelan)

The problem with the deregistering players is that once you do it, you set a precedent. De-registering Todd Carney set a precedent. But a precedent can paint you into a corner. It holds all subsequent decisions – or non-decisions – up to scrutiny.

When compared, all Todd Carney’s crimes/disgraces combined are at worst only comparable to those of Matt Lodge. While Carney’s drink driving did risk the lives of others, his other offences – while socially repulsive – did not visit serious injury on anyone. Fortunately neither did the drink driving. A repeat offender, Carney may never have another NRL contract registered.

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Perhaps like Carney in 2010, Lodge got registered because the NRL believes in giving second chances?

But how would the NRL supporting public know that if they aren’t told? And, as usual, they weren’t told a thing by NRL HQ.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this situation is on you, Todd. You and the organisation which you lead have to be accountable and speak up. As CEO, the buck stops with you whether you like it or not.

Let’s hope the NRMA don’t walk…

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